September 4, 2010 4:06 pm

ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports that Seattle Seahawks offensive line coach Alex Gibbs abruptly resigned just a week before the regular season starts.

UPDATE: The Seahawks just confirmed Gibbs has stepped down because of fatigue.

Now, Gibbs has been known to wear out his welcome, hence the bouncing around he has done his career. And Gibbs is no spring chicken at 69 years old.

But it does come as a surprise that this would happen just before the season starts.

I had heard rumblings that Gibbs was grating on the players in his position group, but this is nothing new.

Seattle does have an experienced guy on the staff in Art Valero, the assistant offensive line coach, who has coached offensive line for 30 years. So I would expect him to move up, and Luke Butkus, the nephew of Dick Butkus, to fill Valero’s role.

Still, this is very odd timing.

Also, Jason La Canfora of the NFL Network is reporting the Seahawks have acquired OL Stacy Andrews from Philadelphia.

UPDATE: The Andrews signing has been confirmed. The Seahawks reportedly gave up a seventh rounder in the 2011 draft.

I would think this means Ben Hamilton will not make the final roster. Schefter reports that Seattle gave up a late-round pick in 2011 for Andrews.

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Gregg Bell joined The News Tribune in July 2014. Bell had been the director of writing for the University of Washington's athletic department for four years. He was the senior national sports writer in Seattle for The Associated Press from 2005-10, covering the Seahawks in their first Super Bowl season and beyond. He's also been The Sacramento Bee's beat writer on the Oakland Athletics and Raiders. The native of Steubenville, Ohio, is a 1993 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and a 2000 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.

STACY ANDREWS isn’t sure what the Eagles’ acquisition yesterday of veteran guard Reggie Wells means for him, but Andrews knows he doesn’t like hearing in the media that Wells might take Andrews’ right guard spot, and that Andrews might be traded or released.

“I felt like I was pretty solid in there [against Kansas City, his last preseason action], but I guess they felt otherwise,” Andrews said. He said he hasn’t gotten any indication from coaches he is on shaky ground.

Andrews said he thinks he is making progress learning to play right guard, but “I would not have signed here from the jump” to be a guard.

WTF- Gibbs resigns a week before the season. This can’t be good!!! I hope they have a good replacement because we all know this unit, O-Line, has a lot of issues that need to be corrected if we are going to win again. Gibbs was one of the first positive signings for this organization now he’s gone before the season starts. Not good Carroll & Front office

I don’t think Carroll or the front office should be blamed for Gibbs’ retiring.

It’s just one of those unfortunate things teams have to deal with. Reminds me of when Fritz Shurmur died before he had a chance to revamp the Seahawks defense under Holmgren. At least Gibbs was able to use training camp and the preseason to do some coaching before we lost him.

If Alex Gibbs retired because of fatigue, that’s one thing. But if he bailed out because of conflicts with the other coaches, as some sources are suggesting, then this season is likely heading for a train wreck. Teams that dump assistants in preseason (remember all the coordinator firings last year in pre-season) are organizations that have no clue what’s going on.

Pretty hard for the team to be “all-in” when the coaches aren’t “all-in…”

I hope our 1st round pick gets used on a RT and our 2nd rounder is a RG (Unger moved to C) and our first 4th round pick is another guard. I know we need a pass rusher too, but I am so sick and tired of a bunch of clowns on the OL. People always b!tch and moan about the importance of an OL (with good reason) and continuity and then they try to blend a rookie, with a 10 year guy, with a 5th year guy, with a 2nd year guy, with an 8th year guy or whatever. Why the hell not just draft a group who has a legit chance to spend almost a decade together? That would be long term thinking. And if we’re building for the long term, why not do this?

I don’t think we’re in crisis mode. Except for the Wilson (which I still disagree with) trade, I think we’re fine. The FO can’t be blamed for Gibbs leaving. My only request, for the request box, is to build an OL the right way.

Gibbs realizes now that he’s tying himself to a sinking ship if he sticks around. We have an indecisive and incompetent general manager. His value will be lower after this year, because with the crap they’ve given him he can NOT succeed at his job. Nobody wants to go out like that. I don’t blame him. Schneider is an idiot. His spat of incomprehensible moves made this not as much of a surprise as it would have been even 2 weeks ago.

Until the dust settles I really don’t know how to react. I can’t imagine because Hamilton was released, that would cause Gibbs to resign. That alone can’t be it. I look forward to more info as it comes out.

There’s a lot of mindless speculation going on about Gibbs retirement. Remember that Coach Carroll asked Gibbs fo come out of retirement to come here. There was always a risk he was too old for this grind.

The Stacy Andrews signing would appear to be most tied to the fates of Ray Willis and Chester Pitts – the two players who could back up Shaun Locklear to take his job if healthy. Ray Willis might be heading for the IR list. Chester Pitts might not be as close to returning as rumored. In that case, we desperately needed another RT.

Is this fatigue or is he just a quitter, running game never got on track, other than denver what playoff teams, run the Z-blocking?? really is it really the save all?? Saint, Pats, colts, other SB winners in recent history did they run it?? Why do most of you jump on the sinking ship bandwagon after every move. Were not a 11 win team were a struggling to win at home team trying to rebuild, takes time!!! The Z blocking sucked last year, Let them build and please BoobyK Josh is gone and aint commin back dude,

After reading a bunch of posts from ‘Bobby’, ‘Duke’ and ‘Stevos’, I feel compelled
to clarify that everyone knows we will suck in 2010, right?

We aren’t anywhere competitive (even in the NFC West) and this season is a throwaway. Yet, I’ve been gone from a real sports city long enough to recognize my civic duty as a Seattle sports fan to not care about results and just cheer ‘my team with lemming-like devotion… gawd, I hope we get to 8-8. That would be awesome!

As I’ve said since Carroll / Schneider were hired, the win / loss total this season is irrelevant (to me). When you’re rebuilding like this, having a win total expectation this early is heartbreak waiting to happen. It’s about small victories and seeing the improvement from the young talent. Next year at this time, hopefully we’ll be able to realistically say they will be competing for a division, but this season, that would be a stretch at best.

“OH BOY!!! Art Valero, from the devistating “RAMS”, will now be our offensive line head coach????? Kool Aide…. give me more Kool Aide!!!!”

Lose your cool and panic much dude? Ever see the injuries on the Rams line the last few years not to mention the lack of talent to start with? Worse than here.

Fatigue? How do you get fatigue a week before the season opener, one training camp into the new job? That’s B.S. Very bush league to bail on a team like this. Maybe that’s why Gibbs bounced around so much, no character and no guts.

Isn’t Shawn Andrews the guy who missed time with mental issues? Suffering from severe clinical depression? Anyway, here’s a link from 2006 showing he’s played a lot of guard with the Eagles.

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